Enhanced Radiation Tolerance Of Non-Polar-Terminated Zno

Room-temperature heavy-ion bombardment of polar (0001) ZnO leads to the formation of intermediate peak and step features in damage-depth profiles measured by ion channeling. Here, we show that these anomalous disorder effects are strongly suppressed for crystals with (11 (2) over bar0) and (10 (1) over bar0) non-polar surface terminations. Possible defect interaction scenarios responsible for the enhanced radiation tolerance of non-polar-terminated ZnO are discussed. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.